UK Climate Change Bill Today

Julian Hector

13 Mar 07, 07:58 AM

David Miliband, Secretary of State for the Environment, announces the first ever climate change bill today. At its centre is to cut UK carbon emissions by 60% by 2050.

This is also the day the last episode of PEuT is broadcast at 11.00 GMT. In it a thrilling discussion which deals with many of the issues embodied in both the Government bill on global warming and some of the recent initiatives proposed by David Cameron, leader of the conservative party. Conservationist Sanjayan, of the Nature Conservancy in PEuT today, says targeting air travel "is no silver bullet",energy conservation has to be tackled in the home and beyond. So in Britain today it's turf wars for Green Air - the NGO's are happy, they say they have been fighting for such a white paper for years.

Miliband says the annual targets planned for carbon reductions will be assessed annually by an independent carbon committee. Miliband's proposals suggest a variety of low carbon initiatives that kick in over the next decades that meet the 60% reduction target by 2050. Critics will say this is too little, too late in the face of the greatest threat many experts believe climate change is to the earth.

Do we need something much more radical. Cutting our passion to fly certainly is, it will hurt - but we have a passion for the car too - it just isn't that easy. And our homes are massively wasteful. . Is it right that we have a total carbon allowance, implicated in Milibands ideas - so, if you use low energy light bulbs you can go flying. Miliband no doubt thinks that is rather a silly caricature...but it's sort of true. Maybe Cameron is on to something..."pay as you burn". Ming Campbell, leader of the Liberal Democrats, wants environmental policy through the tax system.

Where are the radical ideas.??.go on, I challenge you, look at the "Monks are Cool" entry below...Monks have got something enduring - a sign post from them to us that could initiate a culture change shifting our relationship with the environment - one that has community and sustainability at its heart. Monastic orders could be the think tank of hundreds of years experience that we're all looking for.

You don't have to be religious to share common values around community spirt and localism.

Why is it that all political parties are targeting Air Travel when there are far bigger polluters in the transport sector that should be tackled first, namely the shipping industry. Or is it perhaps the air travel industry is a soft target as most taxes issues are.

The shipping industry is the biggest polluter of all forms of transport and in the year 2000, EU-flagged shipping emitted 200 million tons of CO2, significantly more than EU aviation. By 2020 the figure is set to exceed the level of all EU land sources of emissions combined. What will this Government or any future government do about it? Nothing.

It still has not been proven that air travel contributes to global warming but quite the reverse,in fact it helps prevent temperatures rising by causing global dimming as was proven after 7/11 when aircraft stopped flying and a temperature increase was recorded.

If we are really series about reducing carbon emmissions then perhaps we should tax the consumption of beef as cattle are by far the largest produces of green houses gases

Post a complaint

Please note Name and E-mail are required.

Name

Required

E-mail

Required(not displayed)

Complaint(you may use HTML tags for style)

2.

At 11:19 AM on 13 Mar 2007,

lesley heneghan wrote:

My family and I live in Germany and BBC Radio (particularly) 4 is a great source of entertainment and education. My kids, 11 and 16, hear a great deal about global warming and frequently ask questions which I am not always able to answer . Does there exist, anywhere on BBC radio, an informative program aimed at children/teenagers that can enhance their understanding and awareness of important everyday issues?

Post a complaint

Please note Name and E-mail are required.

Name

Required

E-mail

Required(not displayed)

Complaint(you may use HTML tags for style)

4.

At 11:54 AM on 13 Mar 2007,

Chris Smart wrote:

Regarding planet earth under threat, Rowan Williams seemed to be making suggestions on how other people should reduce their carbon footprint - it would be interesting to know what of these suggestions he puts into practice. Rowan Williams and his wife have recently published books which doesnt seem to be very GREEN.
Our vehicle runs on recycled vegetable oil which is carbon neutral.

Post a complaint

Please note Name and E-mail are required.

Name

Required

E-mail

Required(not displayed)

Complaint(you may use HTML tags for style)

5.

At 12:21 PM on 13 Mar 2007,

R W Marlow wrote:

In all the discussion about global warming due to man's activities, am I the only one who cannot understand why world human population and its increase never seems to be mentioned. A few long life light bulbs, turning off appliances on standby etc etc are totally irrelevant in the context of a world population which has increased from about 20 million to 7 billion in about 2000 years!!! despite famine, war etc.

Post a complaint

Please note Name and E-mail are required.

Name

Required

E-mail

Required(not displayed)

Complaint(you may use HTML tags for style)

6.

At 12:40 PM on 13 Mar 2007,

James Baring wrote:

The reason air travel has to be 'targetted' is that it's climate effect has to be nipped in the bud before it becomes too economically dangerous to control it. There are new businesses growing fast which are completely dependent on subsidised, undertaxed air travel. They are not necessary for the healthy development of global society; quite the reverse.
Air travel is a vital part of global business and social contact but it must not be abused.
I agree its tricky to work out how to do this. Everything is.

Post a complaint

Please note Name and E-mail are required.

Name

Required

E-mail

Required(not displayed)

Complaint(you may use HTML tags for style)

7.

At 01:00 PM on 13 Mar 2007,

Jon wrote:

James, you have voiced the deep fears of many, that in the name of global warming, we are seeing a start to social engineering on a grand scale.
Our politicians no longer represent our views but seek to dictate, but will perhaps sober up when faced with the electorate.

Post a complaint

Please note Name and E-mail are required.

Name

Required

E-mail

Required(not displayed)

Complaint(you may use HTML tags for style)

9.

At 01:22 PM on 13 Mar 2007,

Peter Logan wrote:

The recent UN report which included evidence from climate scientists from 113 countries concluded that the cause is "human activity". It seems fairly obvious from this that the starting piont of any serious debate ought to be that we need to find ways of greatly reducing that human activity. In other words, it is not simply a question of what we should do - we always want to DO something about any perceived problem - but what we should stop doing. Another recent report told us that large numbers of people are unhappy with their work. Now bring these two reports together and add a third observation of my own - that a large percentage of the work that we do is a complete and utter waste of time, and especially of resources and energy. (I think a figure of 60% is a good ball-park estimate) - then we have a basis for discussion.
If I am correct, then the mere fact of transporting millions of people to these unnecessary jobs in the morning, and back home again in the evening, is a totally profligate use of fossil fuels, as well as polluting, for no reason.
Are we really interested in radical solutions to this problem, and many others besides - and we should recognise that climate change is not an isolated question, unrelated to everything else - or do we, unlike ostriches, expect to continue to bury our heads in the sand and carry on as usual, more or less?

Post a complaint

Peter Logan makes some great points about travel and work balances. However can we first agree what the problem is we want to fix?

I would like to see Africa able to use its natural resources and increase their life expectancy more than i would worry about a few stressed executives who frankly should be able to sort out their own solution.

The world is warming up but not because of us. The 113 "scientists" have not presented all of the evidence, it is a partial report.

They have ignored all of the evidence that the vast majority of CO2 increase comes from the oceans not man.

This is about money and politics, not science. Therefore there are too many vested interests (people employed in this billion dollar industry) to stop it now.

The chancellor is of course going to use it to lump on more taxes - he needs the money and has got a cause that the populous will accept. That is his job.

If we are going to stop this and free the third world from its choke, we all have to start asking for an open debate not just perpetuate this bandwagon.

The "Great Global Warming Swindle" was repeated on More4 last night. It may be complete waffle but, as a scientist, I can see it has good arguments. I do not have the information to contradict them and I don't hear them from the global warming lobby.

This morning the Today programme paid homage to the Carbon Reduction program without questioning it at all. What has happened to John et al and their challenging interrogations?

Could someone please contradict with evidence the claims made against global warming by the "..Swindle" program;

1. The Sun has far greater impact on our climate than CO2. Its activity matches our temperatures over 1000's of years.
2. Volcanoes and the oceans both produce far greater amounts of CO2 than mankind - and there is only 0.45% CO2 in the atmosphere of which we contribute 1%!
3. The plot of temperature against human CO2 generation does not match in the last century.
4. The ice caps have melted massively before to no detriment to mankind.
5. The model for CO2 and temperature against altitude is embarrassingly incorrect - debasing the CO2 causes heating argument?

Does no one else at least feel curious that More4's program asked these questions and was ignored?

It's time to own up David and declare the carbon emissions which are generated in the manufacturing of the goods we buy.

How many tons does a Ford Mondeo emit in it's making? You'll be shocked.

It's time everything was labelled with the carbon emissions generated to make it.

People say we must change China and India's ways since they're amongst the biggest producers- we can, simply stop buying goods from China!
As their markets close down they'll soon stop building coal fired power stations.

People may fear a collapse of capitalism if we stop buying goods, but the alternative in a few decades
time is the collapse of civilisation and the end of Homo Sapiens.

Post a complaint

Please note Name and E-mail are required.

Name

Required

E-mail

Required(not displayed)

Complaint(you may use HTML tags for style)

13.

At 08:40 PM on 13 Mar 2007,

john cooknell wrote:

I listened to debates about this but suddenly realised I didn't actually know how increasing the CO2 in air from 300ppm to 500ppm caused the air to warm up when subjected to the suns heat waves reflected from the Earth.

Well I am an Enginer and deal with energy in air quite a lot, so I ought to be able to understand this.
On the face of it increasing the amount of CO2 in air from 300ppm to 500ppm (it isn't a lot is it?) shouldn't make a lot of difference.

I decided to find out the actual physics of how CO2 gas in the atmosphere causes global warming, fascinating stuff! If you cannot get to sleep at night this is the stuff for you. Armed with my Psychometric chart and my A level (gradeC) Physics book from school off I went, this should be easy I thought, such a key fact would be well documented for me to find on the "information highway", and I am an Engineer and know about such stuff.

I started off by writing down what I knew.
CO2 is not a very good Greenhouse Gas at the wavelengths of reflected heat,so it on its own will not create global warming (look at Mars loads of CO2 but freezing cold), what the IPCC say is that it is the extra H2O (water vapour)that might be generated by the initial CO2 warming that might lead to a positive feedback effect and so the warming.

Al Gore said in his film The Inconvenient Truth " the way CO2 causes global warming is complicated", well thanks Al ! , a little more detail might have helped at this point.

The historical record from ice cores show that in naturally occurring
warming events the CO2 concentration lags actual warming by 600-800 years.
So the CO2 didn't start the warming in all other known warming events, this was started by "some unknown force". The CO2 then takes over and prolongs the warming by creating the positive feedback effect, I have not read anything about how this effect ends and it all cools down again.

Any way of I went "Google-ing" away, and it proved a little disappointing at first, there didn't appear to be a simple or any explanation of the actual physics, or experiments or observations that tested the Hypothesis, so I decided to put my query on a climate change blog site
in the sure knowledge that some Geek would answer.

No answer came, the adjacent blog to mine about Extra Terrestrial Aliens
received 50 replies within minutes, but at last a kindly old soul pointed me in the direction of some papers produced in the 50's and 60's that he didn't think would be on the Internet, he wished me luck in my Task and be sure to let him know if I ever reached a conclusion, signing off as the Governments Scientific Advisor (I trust this was a joke!).

The papers he pointed me to were all mathematical models so I concluded that this has not been proven by experiment or observation. However mathematical modeling has taken place.

What does it mean, I haven't the faintest ! but I admire the boys at the IPCC for their certainty, I still remain perplexed by it all,how about you?.

Post a complaint

Please note Name and E-mail are required.

Name

Required

E-mail

Required(not displayed)

Complaint(you may use HTML tags for style)

15.

At 10:48 PM on 13 Mar 2007,

John lilley wrote:

The government is allowing massive industrial wind turbines to be built within 500m of peoples homes . To do this the planning rules have been subverted and World Health Org. guide lines on noise polution ignored. Those living close to the latest generation of large turbine have seen, in the worst cases, their houses become unsaleable and to make matters worse they are suffering well documented health problems from noise and vibration
The attitude seem to be this is the price we have to pay for saving the planet. I've yet to see a minster come forward with a similar individual sacrifice.

Post a complaint

Please note Name and E-mail are required.

Name

Required

E-mail

Required(not displayed)

Complaint(you may use HTML tags for style)

16.

At 02:47 AM on 14 Mar 2007,

Lisa wrote:

ref post by John.
Looks like you have been hard at work trying to understand the science behind the whole subject of global warming and whether man made C02 drives climate change as we have all been led to believe.
I found the program on ch4 interesting. I had up to that point always been firmly in the green camp. Now I want to fully understand how the scientists of the IPCC draw their conclusions.But there doesnt seem to be as much information out there as one might expect. All the text books ofcourse state as fact that global warming is produced by greenhouse gasses etc but they dont explain how the mechanism works.....I am an Art History (MA) maybe thats the problem lol
Good luck with your hunt. If you find some answers as to how the mechanism works (real figures etc) please post them. :-)

Post a complaint

Please note Name and E-mail are required.

Name

Required

E-mail

Required(not displayed)

Complaint(you may use HTML tags for style)

17.

At 10:48 AM on 14 Mar 2007,

Alex W wrote:

'Media lens' has published a detailed response of the 'Climate Change Swindle' programme, demonstrating how many of the scientists the appeared on it were duped into doing so and their views misrepresented, and also that other 'scientists' were in the pay of Exxon and other lobby groups - see http://www.medialens.org/alerts/07/0313pure_propaganda_the.php.

The programme also, apparently, produced misleading graphs of temperature change in the 20th century, and failed to mention that the cause for the cooling observed in the post-war years is well-known: the large-scale release of sulphate aerosols, which reflect some of the incoming solar energy.

The film was made by a director well-known for producing misleading anti-green propaganda pieces - C4 were forced to apologise for the misleading nature of a film of his they broadcast a decade ago ('Against Nature').

I'm not a climate scientist and don't profess a deep knowledge of that area of science, but I'm well aware from my own field of science (biology) that it's always possible to find a few mavericks who believe that the general consensus from the vast majority of the field is wrong, and they alone can see the "truth". While very occasionally they may be correct, and mainstream science has got it wrong, by and large this doesn't happen and they are ones who are misguided.

In the climate-change field, we really ought to consider conflicts of interest, too: I cannot see what government-funded scientists (which is the majority of scientists) would have to gain from promoting a "myth" of climate change. In fact, scientists are notoriously cautious, and it has taken decades of meticulous research for them to even tentatively conclude that human activities are leading to an increase in global temperatures - they won't be saying this just for the fun of it. In contrast, it is very easy to see why some people might be sceptical of climate change: many mega-corporations have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo, since it will cost them money if levies / limits are imposed on CO2 emissions.

I would love to believe that anthropogenic CO2 emissions had no effect on global climate, but sadly at the moment I see no evidence this is the case. And we really have to adopt the precautionary principle here: substantially changing the composition of the earth's atmosphere (and doubling CO2 concentration counts as a substantial change, even if CO2 makes up a relatively small proportion of atmospheric gasses) is highly LIKELY to have an impact on climate, even if we can't predict this impact precisely. Many of the measures to reduce CO2 emissions are common-sense anyway: of course we should be more energy efficient, as there is no point in wasting energy and money if not necessary. So I really cannot see what the argument is about.

Post a complaint

I'm still being bored by those who seem to prefer to conveniently think that that AGW is some sort of corporate or big brother conspiracy. All the above anti-AGW comments have been soundly dealt with by expert bloggers on earlier strands on this site. As Jon (7)descibes it - 'social engineering' is a daily reality, but AGW is not an example. If anything we have been succesfully 'socially engineered' from facing up to the realities of AGW for the past 25 years (it's not good marketing to say your product causes pollution).

RW Marlowe (5)- you are not alone, although I know it is easy to feel so sometimes. Again, overpopulation has been discussed in earlier strands. Even Julian Hector has written that overpopulation is the single most important factor affecting AGW. It's all very well talking about climate change, but what about all the climate changers? However, the BBC seems to be utterly reluctant to deal with this subject. At the risk of repeating the message, I'm afraid that we are back to the good old 'Hardinian Taboo' again.

Post a complaint

I have read through loads of stuff, including the helpful posts sent by Jon and Alex W which of course contradict one another, ever was it so.

Conclusions reached so far:-

In the Theoretical Physics world, CO2 is a Greenhouse Gas, and can have a warming effect. How much is open to interpretation. For increasing levels of CO2 to have an effect like predicted by the IPCC positive feedback mechanisms must occur, without any negative feedbacks, and increased amounts of water vapour must enter the atmosphere.

NOTE: This is all Theoretical.

This Hypothesis only applies for the current man made Global Warming event, it is unlikely that it is an explanation for any other natural warming/climate change events. How the Earth cools again is not explained by this Hypothesis.

My own thoughts are still on the sceptical side, as I now understand the Theoretical Physics better and if this was the only warming event the Earth had experienced I would go with it.

However logic tells me that this has all happened many times before and it was nothing to do with us, so there has got to be a good chance, at least, that it is nothing to do with us.

However you had better make up your own mind, I am an Engineer by profession not a Scientist, and it is natural for me to disbelieve scientific theory, particularly anything to do with Thermodynamic Modelling as at best it is inaccurate, and normally totally useless in the real physical world.

Alex, I read the article on Media lens, and could see what they were saying, but you and they miss a big point here.

The C4 programme was not a news or a current affairs programme it was just a documentary film called the "Great Global Warming Swindle" it didn't pretend to be News or editorial comment, in essence it appeared to be an answer to another bit of film propaganda made by Al Gore called "The Inconvenient Truth", it could be said that both were made by those of dubious character and motive.

However Climate Change theory, and sometimes quite misleading "facts" are often presented as News, for instance the BBC News, quite famously, at first, declared the Asian Tsunami to be caused by Climate Change.

The BBC also ran a News story on how Cliff Top erosion in Norfolk, houses falling into the sea etc. was caused by Climate Change, when the erosion process is due to Cliffs made of mixed up soft Glacial deposits, long shore drift and the draining of the Fens. However in hindsight I can see they were right its just the Climate Change responsible happened 10000 years ago.

Post a complaint

Please note Name and E-mail are required.

Name

Required

E-mail

Required(not displayed)

Complaint(you may use HTML tags for style)

25.

At 04:13 PM on 16 Mar 2007,

Alex W wrote:

John, I completely agree with you that both sides of the media frequently present distorted, or sometimes completely fallacious, stories about climate change. In fact, the media do that about almost all issues: I know from media coverage of my own research how badly wrong they can get it.

My point with my above post was just to caution people not to take the C4 film as gospel truth, and believe that it does "debunk" climate change theory.

Global climate change is immensely complex, and I don't think that any lay people can really begin to understand it, or how humans' actions will affect it. The current consensus from thousands of expert climate scientists is that anthropogenic CO2 emmisions are "most probably" leading to global warming. The idea that this is all some big conspiracy (not that we're ever told why that should be the case - what's in it for these scientists?) is just ludicrous, as is the idea that a few mavericks and a short documentary can "prove" these 1000s of scientists wrong.

Post a complaint

Please note Name and E-mail are required.

Name

Required

E-mail

Required(not displayed)

Complaint(you may use HTML tags for style)

26.

At 03:23 PM on 17 Mar 2007,

mark shepherd wrote:

I'm sceptic about the whole tax raising issue.. oops given it away ;o)
I want to see some proper data and proper graphical results.
If co2 warming needs increased water vapour then surely it all drops back out again when the saturated solution hits mountains rises and cools to become supersaturated etc and falls as rain or snow which then cools the passing air as it evaporates again.
Any cannabis/tomato grower can tell you that increased CO2 leads to increased carbon laid down as plant material. Perhaps the answer is to grow many more pine trees and build more wooden houses and this would solve housing shortage and remove CO2.
I see freon aerosols lead to global cooling so perhaps we need more of those emissions too (I jest)...
I see data now is only going back to 1880. If so then it is almost useless.
How much Co2 was created by GI Joe in dropping millions (or was it only 100's of thousands) of tonnes of high explosives in the last 4 years... or... heck go on back to 'Nam if you want or WW2 etc! Could this have saved the world from it's impending ice age? There is data out there you just have to know where to look:

Here are some 'recent' weather reports:

1)Feb. 4th "The morning warm and sunny. The young lasses seen on the hilltops, in the vilages and roads in their summer holiday clothes. Midges and flies spinning in the sunshine daisies upon the turf; the hazels in blossom; honeysuckles budding"

2)Feb 26th "We are drowning again for the second winter, and hear of nothing but floods and desolation"

3)Feb 24th "I tell you we have had the mildest winter known... The extrordinary fine season has killed heaps of people with influenza"

4)"The great talk was of the effects of this late great wind... We have had letters from the forest of Deane, that above 1,000 oakes and as many beeches are blown down in one walk there"
Read the following key backwards for the weather reporters and the year.
1)8971 htrowsdroW yhtoroD
2)8671 eloplaW
3)4481 dlaregztiF
4)2661 sypeP

Post a complaint

For those who believe the international documents declaring Global Warming is real and present and signed by 2600 scientists - so that makes it true - please read the following:

For an explosive challenge to the Global Warming crowd read these 2 webpages:

The first has 17,200 verified scientists (2,600 are immenently qualified to judge global warming) who have signed the Global Warming Petition which it refutes the science behind Global Warming as portrayed in An Inconvenient Truth.

All these scientists are not in the pay of big industry, oil, weapons, chemicals, etc. These are reputable scientists. This would make a very interesting series of reports that has not been done by anyone.

Everyone has bought into the "FACTS" of global warming - saying the Science is in - and everyone agrees. The truth of the matter is that fewer scientists agree 2,500 compared to those that disagree 17,200.

You may also want to look into Al Gore's non-advertisment advertisement called An Inconvenient Truth for his carbon trading credit company that won him the Oscar. Everyone talks about dirty oil but could this be dirty environmentalism?

Post a complaint

Please note Name and E-mail are required.

Name

Required

E-mail

Required(not displayed)

Complaint(you may use HTML tags for style)

28.

At 08:52 AM on 31 Mar 2007,

George Robinson wrote:

I wonder if David Miliband really knows what he is talking about, 60% by the year 2050. Never in a month of sundays, as the saying goes. CO2 is a problem, but the biggest problem the UK has at the moment, is methane gases. These gases are released from your landfills, which are getting bigger and bigger and bigger. When the UK has the archaic system of rubbish production and rubbish disposal, then the landfills WILL continue to grow and grow and grow, and produce more and more methane gases, which are extremely more dangerous than CO2 gases. The only way to combat your rubbish problem is to incinerate it and at the same time produce energy and hot water. Sweden has been doing this for years, so we do not have landfills for household rubbish, not any more, only energy and hot water instead.

Post a complaint

Please note Name and E-mail are required.

Name

Required

E-mail

Required(not displayed)

Complaint(you may use HTML tags for style)

29.

At 11:06 AM on 04 Apr 2007,

George Robinson wrote:

Further to my last comment. The UK uses fossil fuels, that is coal, oil and gas for the producing of energy. Instead of investing colossal amount of money on the new gas pipe line from Norway across the N Sea to the UK, why not invest in Hydro schemes on the west coast and Scotland. There are sufficient glens and abundant water to supply the UK with energy, then you could close down all the fossil fuel power plants for good.

Post a complaint

Please note Name and E-mail are required.

Name

Required

E-mail

Required(not displayed)

Complaint(you may use HTML tags for style)

30.

At 06:13 PM on 02 May 2007,

Mark wrote:

Why is BBC suddenly interested in spreading propaganda to absolve China of its responsibility for global warming? I've seen two reports already in which BBC all but said this itself yet it bashed America for years over it. Why is it acceptable for a nation of 1.3 bilion people who produce 2.3 T$ of GDP to put out 6000 million tons of CO2 each year but for a country of 300 million who produce 13 T$ GDP a year it is not? Five times as much output from less than a quarater as many people for the same CO2 generation, over 20 times as efficient yet Kyoto would force major cuts the US but leave China alone. That is why the US Senate rejected it by a vote of 95-0 during the Clinton adminsitration. It and its successor unless very different is still unacceptable to America. Wake up Europe, time is quickly running out. Put on your thinking caps, devise a fair plan which will work, and wind up your talking shop. That's what you're best at anyway, generating hot air.